HINKLEY — There is a lot of bottled water in this tiny community 14 miles northwest of Barstow made famous by the “Erin Brockovich” movie in 2000 and made infamous by the toxic chemical that leaked into its groundwater years earlier.

Wherever you go, you see cases of bottled water. What you don’t see is a whole lot of trust.

“There’s still no trust,” said Roberta Walker, who sits on the Community Advisory Committee and was the housewife portrayed in the “Erin Brockovich” movie. Her lack of trust is directed at Pacific Gas and Electric. “I will never trust them.”

Walker spoke those words inside the Hinkley School multipurpose building, the site of Thursday’s meeting hosted by the Community Advisory Committee. Officials from PG&E and the Lahontan water district were also in attendance to meet with Hinkley residents. More than 50 showed up — a small representation of those who rejected a buyout of their homes by PG&E. More than 600 residents accepted the buyout that totaled $333 million.

The Community Advisory Committee is made up of four residents who live in Hinkley. Joining Walker on the committee are Larry Griep, Betty Hernandez and Barbara Ray.

“I have no trust with the committee,” said James Nelson, who attended the meeting.

Before the Community Advisory Committee’s public meeting, the members met with Lahontan Water Board representative Lauri Kemper inside the office on Sierra Road provided by PG&E. The committee’s technical advisor, Ian Webster, and newly hired facilitator Annie Cwieka were also in attendance.

A representative for PG&E, Stephanie Isaacson, showed up late for that meeting because she was meeting with another small group of Hinkley residents. Besides that group, there are other groups in the community that the committee expressed an interest in working with.

“It’s time to take a pause and sit back,” Cwieka said, as she wrote key points on a marker board. “Are we accomplishing what we need to accomplish? Are we meeting our goals? Are we meeting the needs of the people?”

Hernandez and the rest of the board agreed that the committee still needs to help residents find answers. But she puts the majority of blame for mistrust on PG&E.

“You have to understand in this community, there’s has been a lot of mistrust,” she said. “Because PG&E has done a lot of lying. They were telling us everything was fine and it wasn’t fine. And I don’t blame them for the chromium-6, because everybody was using it and nobody knew the damages. So I don’t hold them responsible.

“But what I do hold them responsible for is when they found out there was a problem, the whole community should have been involved. They were putting it (chromium-6) into the ground. There should have been meetings: ‘It’s not our fault, but we will work our damnedest so this valley will not suffer.’ If they would have come open, no lies, just come out and speak the truth, everybody would have loved them. And it would have been cheaper for them too.”

Griep said people are just “disgusted with the whole situation.”

“They can’t sell, they are stuck,” he said of local homeowners.

He also said residents are not getting enough good information.

“We are getting a lot of information to the people, but not good enough information,” he said. “It’s kind of blah, blah information. We need to get more good information to the people so they can learn something.”

At the public meeting, concerns from residents ranged from the progress made in cleaning the chromium plume that still exists in the groundwater, to the large amount of dead trees on residential properties bought by PG&E that are not being maintained.

“I was letting them know that the trees are dying. It’s becoming a fire hazard.” Richard Monk said after talking to a PG&E official. “She said what they (PG&E) always say: ‘They are working on it.’ ”

Mike Lamb can be reached at 760-256-4127 or mlamb@desertdispatch.com. You can also follow him on Twitter @mlambdispatch.